Internetworking provides electronic devices the ability to communicate with remote devices, along with the associated benefits of such communication. However, networks can consist of large numbers of devices spread over enormous geographic areas. Consequently, maintaining the health of such networks present considerable challenges. Such networks may consist of a variety of types of devices, communicating over a variety of mediums, using various protocols. Such networks may include wireless devices, traditional voice, ATM, Frame Relay, Cable, DSL, and dial platforms. Optical networks are becoming increasingly popular for performance reasons.
Optical internetworking combines high performance data and optical networking technologies to create new optical networking solutions that can efficiently support the exponential growth of data traffic. This tremendous growth in traffic rates combined with the demands for new services are rapidly driving the implementation of optical networks. It is desirable to facilitate keeping network availability and performance at satisfactory levels.
Optical networks comprise a wide variety of optical devices, such as Dense Wave Division Multiplexers (DWDM), optical concentrators, optical routers, etc. Optical routers anchor the core of the optical internetworking infrastructure by accepting data traffic from traditional voice, ATM, Frame Relay, Cable, DSL, and dial platforms and then transmitting this data at high speeds across an optical networking infrastructure. Several protocols exists for transporting data. Sonet/SDH based network elements provide a reliable transport mechanism, performance monitoring, and ring based protection. Emerging technologies such as Dynamic Packet Transport (DPT), which is based on the Spatial Reuse Protocol (SRP), enable more efficient IP oriented approaches to building self-healing fiber rings for data transport.
Challenges exist in keeping network availability and reliability high in such complex networks whether or not they are optical. Some conventional techniques to report on the status of such networks are poorly organized. Thus, it is difficult for the end user to analyze the data and problems may exists without the user's knowledge. For example, the software that is running may need an update given the current network configuration. Or, the performance of the network may be sub-optimal because of changes in traffic flow since the network was designed.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a method for performing a network audit. What is still further needed is a method that efficiently collects the data from a multitude of devices which are geographically diverse. What is still further needed is a method that presents an organized display of the data such that a user may take appropriate action if the network has faults or needs updates of hardware or software.